DISTRICT TO BUY 77 ACRES FOR SCHOOL AT $1.9 MILLION, WESTSIDE SITE IS FLAT, HAS STREETS, UTILITIES.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO Staff Writer

LANCASTER -- Antelope Valley Union High School District will acquire more than 77 acres of vacant farmland for $1.9 million from a member of an Antelope Valley pioneer family for a potential high school site.

Little over a mile northwest of California State Prison-Los Angeles County, the property is better suited for building a high school than two other sites the district already owns on the Antelope Valley's west side because it's flat and has the necessary streets and utilities, officials say.

``We are going to need one (school site), even one out that way. Look at all the houses they are building near the prison there at J and 60th West,'' Beattie said.

The land at the northwest corner of 70th Street West and Avenue I is being purchased from Forrest Godde, whose family settled in the Antelope Valley in the late 1800s.

The school would be either the district's 10th or 11th comprehensive high school, depending on the pattern of future residential development on the west side.

The district's ninth high school will be in southeast Palmdale.

When high school No. 10 would be built depends on whether the district can succeed in passing a school construction bond measure. Local voters rejected one in June.

The $1.9 million price is less than what Godde paid for the land, which was assembled from a number of other Godde family members, officials said. Godde's agent would not disclose what was paid for the land, but said Godde wanted to help the high school district.

``He's a good guy. He's lived here all his life and grew up here. He went to the Westside school district and the high school district. He's always been pretty active in the community. He decided to sell it to them at a price that was lower,'' said John Rush, a real estate broker who represented Godde. ``I think he's a generous person.''

The money to buy the land came from a district fund set aside for acquiring land.

The district owns two other locales for high schools on the west side of the Antelope Valley, one in southwest Palmdale's Ritter Ranch master-planned community between Palmdale and Leona Valley, and the other in northwest Lancaster near Avenue G and 95th Street West.

The Ritter Ranch site would have to be terraced and it and the Avenue G site do not have infrastructure, officials said.

``The land we purchased could be built on soon. It's got all the infrastructure,'' board president Donita Winn said.

``Seventieth West and I has less obstacles,'' trustee Al Beattie said. ``Quartz Hill and Lancaster (high school) overcrowding could be alleviated. We could pull students to that school.''

State matching funds are now available with voter approval of a state bond in the November election.

``Now that the state has approved its bond, it's incumbent on us to raise our share of the cost for building schools,'' Beattie said. District voters in June rejected a $177.5 million bond measure that would have paid for construction of two new high schools, completed construction of Eastside High, expanded Quartz Hill High, and added two new science labs at Lancaster.

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